HEARING FISHERMEN’S VOICES

Fishermen can be excused for not being enthusiastic about the industry’s top regulator finally talking about “community-based management.” Fishermen from Maine and around the country have long suggested that decisions about how many fish are caught and where be made by those with the most knowledge of the area. Now, it seems that the National Marine Fisheries Service has heard them. That’s a good start.

William Hogarth, the head of NMFS, met with Massachusetts fishermen last week to discuss rule changes. “Fishing is a tough business and a hazardous business. We need to continue to try to work to let fishermen have more of a say,” Hogarth said in New Bedford. He later told the paper there that new approaches such as community-based management and individual fishing quotas need to be seriously considered.

While skeptical that consideration will turn into reality, fishermen are pleased that the top regulator is seeing things their way when it comes to local control. Under community-based management, rules are made to cover a small area taking into account the local ecology and economy.

A study two years ago by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that the national system of fishery management councils was “fundamentally flawed.” The council system, put in place in the 1970s, doesn’t work because the groups cover too much area and try to do too much. Regulating fishing from the Bay of Fundy to Narragansett Bay with one set of rules does not make sense and doesn’t work. A more localized approach would likely work better. There is already a successful example in Maine’s lobster zone management concept, which has been touted internationally.

Another change mentioned by Mr. Hogarth and worthy of consideration is a move toward individual fishing quotas rather than the current system of limiting the number of days that fishermen can spend at sea and putting large sections of the ocean off-

limits to them. Fishermen worry that quotas will allow large vessels to put small ones out of business.

A bill drafted by Sen. Olympia Snowe, chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard, begins to address such concerns. It would require that any quotas that are proposed meet national standards that limit consolidation – the buying up of fishing rights by large vessels – and protect local communities. A quota could not be put in place unless two-thirds of fishermen who voted supported it. Quotas that do both have been put in place in other states and countries and can be made to work for Maine.

The overdue reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which should begin soon, provides an opportunity to consider such changes. The end result should be rules that protect fish without harming fishermen.